This week I had the opportunity to attend a meeting to discuss the future of hike & bike trails and bike lanes in Corpus Christi. It was a surprisingly large crowd, around 200 people, and we learned a lot about what the city is planning.
Of course, having watched the city "plan" things for a number of years, I'm not exactly holding my breath. But it does look promising!
The sustainability report we worked off of can be found here; the planned hike & bike trails connecting Wooldridge & Holly to Ennis Joslin & beyond (which have technically been a part of the Corpus Christi Master Mobility Plan for nearly a decade) certainly played a part in my home purchase. And if they can manage to restore the old railroad trestle across the Oso, bikers, runners, and walkers would have a route to Flour Bluff that doesn't involve crossing a six-lane, 65-mph traffic nightmare.
The real beauty of the plan, however, is the way they've couched the proposals. When a street is resurfaced (which should happen every couple of years, though we've got notoriously bad roads), add a bike lane, swap a stop light for a roundabout, revamp the sidewalks. It doesn't cost all that much more than the simple resurfacing, but can provide enormous benefit.
The main point of the meeting, honestly, was just getting the word out. And thank heavens for Tom Neagli from Bay Area Bicycles for doing so! I, for instance, had no idea that a hike & bike trail had recently been opened just a few streets over from me. Or that there are mountain biking trails in the city now, the work performed completely by volunteers!
From the first Corpus FrankenBike to the Ride-In Theater to this talk of hike & bike trails, it's a great time to be a cyclist.
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